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among their Jacobinic or Democratic partisans in America, who would have plunged the yet insecure Republic into a suicidal war, his pen had been among the most powerful in deprecation of the threatening evil. With the partisans of France or the apologizers of England he had no sympathy. As a politician he was free from any sentiment but absolute devotion to his own country. Between the honor of his country and his own honor he made no distinction. The folly and madness of the men of his own section, and the party with which he had been classed, excited afresh his feelings of contempt and independence. He had early recognized the load he had to bear, and had gone steadily on from the day he took his seat in the Senate with a determination to be true to his own convictions. Little by little he had ridden over the sentiment of discourtesy and intolerance towards himself which was the rule around him. He had done the work assigned him, and where he had failed, he had reason to feel some gratification, at least, in a decided negative influence.

Early in 1806 he introduced in the Senate two resolutions strongly condemning the British practice of searching ships of friendly neutral nations, and calling upon the President to demand the restoration of the property of Americans seized by Great Britain under her specious claim. These resolutions, with slight modification, were passed, and not long subsequently, President Jefferson signed the "Non-Importation Act." This was followed in the winter of 1807, by Mr. Jefferson's famous embargo measure. In all of which Mr. Adams gave his determined support to the Administration.

Some of Mr. Jefferson's plans

of national defense he looked upon as trifling and utterly inadequate; nor did he, by any means, view with satisfaction the non-importation and embargo acts. But they were efforts at retaliation, and he hoped some good would come out of them. They, at least, had the virtue of exhibiting a spirit of national honor and patriotism, which he saw, with mortification, giving way in his own section to that of subserviency to English audacity and outrage. In the meantime, to some extent instigated by the tolerance, friendship, or cowardice of the New England and some other American Federalists, Britain had continued and increased her lawless depredations on the lives and property of citizens of the United States. With an utter contempt for the authority or just rights of this country Napoleon Bonaparte had closely followed with one retaliatory measure after another. On the 22d of June, 1807, the British ship, Leopard, fired upon and killed several of the crew of the American frigate, Chesapeake, and then boarded and carried off four of her seamen, most or all of whom were Americans. This act created warlike demonstrations throughout the country. Mr. Adams being then in Boston urged the Federalists to be first in showing their patriotism on this occasion, asking them to call a meeting to take immediate action in the case. But they were tardy, and he met with the friends of the Administration. When the Federalists did at last assemble at Fanueil. Hall he was also there, reporting the resolutions which were adopted at both meetings.

In the fall of 1807, Mr. Adams wrote in his Diary:

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"Of the very little business which I have commenced during the four sessions, at least three-fourths have failed, with circum

stances of peculiar mortification. The very few instances in which I have succeeded, have been always after an opposition of great obstinacy, often ludicrously contrasting with the insignificance of the object in pursuit. More than one instance has occurred where the same thing which I have assiduously labored in vain to effect has been afterwards accomplished by others without the least resistance.

"Of the preparatory business matured in committees, I have had a share, gradually increasing through the four sessions, but always as a subordinate member. The merely laborious duties have been readily assigned to me, and as readily undertaken and discharged. My success has been more frequent in opposition than in carrying any proposition of my own. I hope I have been instrumental in arresting many unadvised purposes and projects. Though as to the general policy of the country, I have been uniformly in a small and constantly decreasing minority, my opinions and votes have been much oftener in unison with the Administration than with their opponents; and I have met with at least as much opposition from my party friends as from their adversaries, I believe more. I know not that I have made any personal enemies now in Senate, nor can I flatter myself with having acquired any personal friends."

On the 20th of January, 1808, a printed circular was sent to all Congressmen excepting twenty-two Representatives and five Senators, inviting them to be present at a Republican caucus to be held three days later, on Saturday night, for the purpose of nominating candidates for President and Vice-President. Mr. Adams was invited, and attended. It was known, however, that this meeting was in the interest of Mr. Madison, and consequently only about ninety members assembled. Eighty-three votes were cast for Mr. Madison, three for Mr. Monroe, and three for George Clinton for President. For the Vice-Presidency there was manifested a disposition in the meeting to compliment Mr. Clinton with a unanimous re-nomination, notwithstanding the very ordinary estimate of his ability on

the part of many members.

The vote stood seventynine for Clinton, five for General Dearborn, one for John Langdon, and one for John Quincy Adams.

About this time Mr. Adams makes this important record in his Diary :

"Mr. Bayard told me he had, last evening, some conversation with Mrs. Madison upon the Presidential electioneering now so warmly carried on, in which she spoke very slightingly of Mr. Monroe."

Of course, Dolly Madison thought the shoes of Mr. Jefferson would fit another James much better than they would James Monroe; and she had a strong inclination to the fancy that the White House, by right, should pass into her hands.

But Mr. Adams's associations were bringing him into trouble with the Massachusetts Federalists. They had long been dissatisfied with his course. About this time he records the substance of a conversation which Josiah Quincy took occasion to hold with him, as follows :

"He inquired into the motives of my late conduct in Congress, which I fully detailed to him. He said my principles were too pure for those with whom I was acting (the Democrats), and they would not thank me for them. I told him I did not want their thanks. He said they would not value me more for them. I told him I cared not whether they valued me for them or not. My character, such as it was, must stand upon its own ground and not upon the bolstering of any man or party. I fully opened to him my motives for supporting the Administration at this crisis, and my sense of the danger which a spirit of opposition was bringing upon the Union. I told him where that opposition, in case of war, must end; either in a civil war, or in a dissolution of the Union, with the Atlantic States in subserviency to Great Britain; that to resist this I was ready, if necessary, to sacrifice everything I have in life, and even life itself."

In this brief statement is the genuine key to all Mr. Adams's actions. His patriotism was above his attachment to party; and the events of the next few years fully justify his conduct at this time, placing his New England Federal friends in exceedingly unfavorable contrast. Without a belief in the honesty of his purposes, and a patriotism on his part which stood far above party and personal considerations, Mr. Adams, at this and one other period later in his career, would be liable to an adverse criticism which it would be difficult, perhaps, to explain away. His motives are too fully revealed in his voluminous Diary to leave room for doubt. The events of his public career sustain the record of the Diary; and, perhaps, it would be difficult to-day to find even a New England Federalist, or a descendant of one, who would dare to avow that John Quincy Adams sold himself to the Republicans.

It was, no doubt, a struggle for him, for several reasons, to leave his political associates and the "sort" with whom he was socially allied. The Federalists were, as a rule, the educated and refined people of the country, and this fact made association with them altogether to Mr. Adams's taste. It was a sense of patriotic duty which took him to the "rabble" Democratic camp. There is no denying, however, that he was wise enough to discern that with them was the field of adventure and political successes. The power of the old Federal party was gone; it had lived out its time, and all it could now do was to act as a thorn in the side of the reckless Democracy.

Early in 1808, Senator Timothy Pickering wrote a letter addressed to the Governor of Massachusetts,

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